Mediaite notes that NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard, in an April 21 post, accused Bill Maher of telling a "racist joke about Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman" for a quip in which a judge granted Zimmerman permission to kill off the hot new boy band One Direction.

Sheppard had to issue a correction because, it turns out, he had no idea who One Direction is:

Now, to be fair to Maher, my ignorance of boy bands was showing Saturday.

This article was originally titled “Bill Maher Curses Out Audience for Not Laughing at Racist Joke About Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman.” I didn’t realize the HBO Real Time host was referring to the popular British-Irish singing group.

I thank the eagle-eyed NewsBusters reader Erik for bringing this to my attention via email, and apologize to Maher for accusing him of making a racist joke about Martin and Zimmerman.

Sheppard does have a habit of writing before thinking, such as defending Michael Savage's smears of children with autism and even whining that President Obama did an introduction to a broadcast of "To Kill A Mockingbird."